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“What were you studying?”
“I hadn’t decided on a major yet. I was just getting the basic classes under my belt. I did like helping my mom do the midwife work.”
He squeezed my hand. “Packs always need midwives.”
I bit my lip and looked at the ground. “I was thinking a little more ambitious.”
Lincoln glanced my way. “Doctor?”
A grin split my face. “Yeah.”
“Packs definitely need those, too.” He bumped me with his hip.
I bumped him back. “And you?”
“Me?” He stepped over a log and turned toward me, helping me over it before we continued walking. “I have always enjoyed working with computers. They were my go-to. The world seems a lot safer when you have the internet between you and everyone else.”
I gave him a toothy grin. “You don’t seem so quiet to me.”
He frowned and looked down at the ground. “I guess I’m not. Things are different with you, Sloane.” He met my eyes. “It’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives. Sawyer is the only other person I’ve felt comfortable with until I met you.”
He let go of my hand and jumped down a small decline, then turned back to me. He put his hands on my hips, lifted me down, and set me right in front of him.
My hands landed on his chest. I peered up at him.
Lincoln swallowed and pulled away. “Not that much farther.”
His hand slid back down my arm and took my hand again.
“Do you do anything else for fun here?” Heat scorched my face as soon as the words left my mouth.
This was hell on Earth. What else could he do here?
Lincoln cleared his throat. “I enjoy running. Maybe one day soon we can have a proper race.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “I think maybe you’re just salty that I won.”
He chuckled. “No. I wasn’t trying.”
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s what they always say.”
He made a face. “What do you say we give it another go? We’ll work on a few fighting techniques and then have another go around the stream again.”
I pursed my lips and shook my head. “Won’t it be getting dark by then?”
The sun was already dropping low, and with it being fall, it would be setting in less than two hours, if not sooner.
He nudged me with his hip. “We can see in the dark.”
“But you’ll have the advantage of knowing the terrain. Everything is different in the dark.”
“It is.” He stopped walking and turned toward me, taking both of my hands in his. “Treat it like another exercise. Learn the area. Learn the woods. You might need to get the lay of the land. It’s important that you know where every broken limb and dip in the ground is. If you’re running for your life, you don’t want to get tripped up because of them.”
I gulped. He was right.
He let go of my hands and took the first two rocks across the stream before reaching back to take my hand.
We made our way across and into the safety of the cave.
